Fedora 20 Now Available, Celebrates 10 Years of Community Innovation

Fedora 20 Now Available, Celebrates 10 Years of Community Innovation
“Heisenbug” adds ARM as primary architecture and enhances integration with
virtualization and cloud computing technologies
Business Wire
RALEIGH, N.C. -- December 17, 2013
The Fedora Project, a Red Hat, Inc. sponsored and community-supported open
source collaboration, today announced the general availability of Fedora 20,
code-named “Heisenbug,” the latest version of the free, Linux-based Fedora
operating system. Developed by a diverse global community, Fedora 20
celebrates 10 years of the Fedora Project’s innovation. This release brings
several key features to enhance usability, performance, and provide developers
with additional functionality.
Since the first official release of Fedora, then called Fedora Core 1, on Nov.
6, 2003, much more has changed than just the name. Over the past 10 years,
Fedora has emerged as an active and vibrant open source community leading the
way in operating system innovation on every front, with Fedora 20 showcasing
just how far Fedora has come.
Fedora 20 is also dedicated to Seth Vidal, a dedicated, tireless, and
brilliant contributor and the lead developer of Yum and the Fedora update
repository. Seth touched the lives of hundreds of Fedora contributors
directly, and millions indirectly by improving the experience of using and
updating Fedora.
Support for ARM
As part of Fedora’s commitment to leading edge open innovation, ARM is now
supported as a primary architecture. While x86/x86_64 serves as the default
architecture for the majority of Fedora users, ARM is rapidly growing in
stature and already dominates the mobile world. Beyond mobile and the maker
movement, ARM shows great promise as a powerful and cost-effective technology
for the server world, leading to primary support from Fedora to satisfy end
users and developers targeting the ARM platform.
Cloud and Virtualization Improvements
Fedora 20 continues the Fedora tradition of adopting and integrating leading
edge technologies used in cloud computing. Features that make working with
virtualization and cloud computing much easier include:
*First-Class Cloud Images – Developed by the Fedora Cloud SIG, these images
are well-suited to running as guests in public and private clouds like
Amazon Web Services (AWS) and OpenStack.
*VM Snapshot UI with virt-manager - This feature makes taking VM snapshots
much easier, by adding a simple, discoverable UI to virt-manager, and
includes adding functionality to libvirt to support deleting and rebasing
to external snapshots.
*ARM on x86 with libvirt/virt-manager- This change to Fedora 20 fixes
running ARM virtual machines on x86 hosts using standard libvirt tools
libvirt virsh, virt-manager and virt-install.
Developer Features
As with all Fedora distributions, Fedora 20 includes several new features and
updated packages to improve the developer experience across the board,
including:
*WildFly 8 – Previously known as JBoss Application Server, WildFly 8 makes
it possible to run Java EE 7 applications with significantly higher speed.
It boasts an optimized boot process that starts services concurrently,
preventing unnecessary waits, and taps into the power of multi-core
processors. Additionally, WildFly takes an aggressive approach to memory
management, and keeps its memory footprint exceptionally small compared to
other JVMs.
*Ruby on Rails 4.0 – The latest version of Ruby on Rails keeps Fedora
up-to-date and allows current Ruby on Rails developers to stay in step
with the project. Apart from that, Rails 4.0 also bring improved
functionality, speed. security and better modularization.
Desktop Improvements
To help Fedora 20 continue to meet everyday user productivity needs, several
improvements and additions have been added to the overall desktop experience,
including:
*GNOME 3.10 - GNOME 3.10 has a number of new applications and features,
including a new music application (gnome-music), a new maps application
(gnome-maps), a revamp for the system status menu, and Zimbra support in
Evolution.
*KDE Plasma Workspaces 4.11 – This latest release includes faster Nepomuk
indexing, improvements to Kontact, KScreen integration in KWin,
Metalink/HTTP support for KGet, and much more.
Maturity and Advanced Features
With a decade of releases behind it, Fedora 20 adds additional refinements to
the needs of more advanced users. These enhancements include:
*NetworkManager Improvements - Users will now be able to add, edit, delete,
activate, and deactivate network connections via the nmcli command line
tool, simplifying non-desktop uses of Fedora. NetworkManager is also
getting support for bonding interfaces and bridging interfaces. Bonding
and bridging are used in many enterprise setups and are necessary for
virtualization and fail-over scenarios.
*No Default Sendmail, Syslog - Fedora 20 removes and replaces some services
that some users find unnecessary from the Live Desktop DVD, such as the
former syslog solution, which is now replaced by systemd journal. The
systemd journal now acts as the default logging solution for minimal and
other selected installation methods such as the Live Desktop DVD, having
been tested and able to manage persistent logging in place of syslog.
Additionally, Sendmail will no longer be installed by default, as typical
Fedora installs have no need of a Mail Transfer Agent (MTA).
Supporting Quotes
Robyn Bergeron, Fedora Project Leader
“For 10 years, Fedora has not only led the way as a cutting-edge, open
operating system, but the Fedora Project has also served as a paradigm for
other open source communities on a global scale. Fedora 20 continues Fedora’s
history of delivering innovative technologies ahead of the curve, bringing to
bear new features that better enable virtualization and cloud computing within
the operating system. Additionally, Fedora 20 builds upon community feedback,
delivering advanced maturity features to address the needs of the most
advanced users.”
Additional Resources
*Learn more about the Fedora Project Community
*Read more about the Fedora 20 release highlights
About The Fedora Project
The Fedora Project is a global partnership of free software community members.
It is sponsored by Red Hat, which invests in the Fedora infrastructure and
resources to encourage collaboration and incubate innovative new technologies.
Some of these technologies may later be integrated into Red Hat products. They
are developed in Fedora and produced under a free and open source license from
inception, so other free software communities and projects are free to study,
adopt and modify them.
About Red Hat, Inc.
Red Hat (the “Company”) is the world's leading provider of open source
software solutions, using a community-powered approach to reliable and
high-performing cloud, Linux, middleware, storage and virtualization
technologies. Red Hat also offers award-winning support, training, and
consulting services. As the connective hub in a global network of enterprises,
partners, and open source communities, Red Hat helps create relevant,
innovative technologies that liberate resources for growth and prepare
customers for the future of IT. Learn more at http://www.redhat.com.
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